2018 Halpin Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

Larry David, the mastermind behind “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and our good friend Halpin have one thing in common. They have mastered the pandemic quarantine. 

“It doesn’t pay to leave your house,” is Larry’s mantra. “It doesn’t pay to leave your wine cellar,” is Halpin’s. And in early April, the Zoom invites began arriving—sometimes two or three a day. Last week, one invite came with an ultimatum: “Accept, and my 2018 Halpin Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is all yours. Every bottle. Decline the invitation, and I’ll sell it all to a broker in China.” We exclaimed “Halpin” out loud like Jerry Seinfeld’s infamous “Newman” asides, then, of course, accepted the Zoom date. 

The following day, UPS arrived with a bottle of the 2018 Halpin Cabernet, literally in time for the “Halpin Zoom Happy Hour.” Still chilled from its refrigerated journey from a winery in Napa, it came with a cryptic note, in the true-to-Halpin form: 

“Don’t ask the name of the 100-point French winemaker, whose winery client ‘X’ harvested more grapes than they could handle in 2018. My lips are sealed. You’ve assuredly enjoyed ‘X’ wines—Bob Parker has rated about 50 of them 90-99 points. Negotiations for blue-chip grapes in a bear market! Translation: My Halpin 2018 Cabernet is just $25 a bottle while their near-$300 Cabernet is for wine club members only (yes, I’m a club member). Listen: If you like those big, up-Valley wines, you’ll find my single-vineyard Cabernet (made from client ‘X’ grapes grown on steep hillsides not far from your Saint Helena friends) just as delicious. Also, you ran the previous vintage on last year’s Black Friday, and this new release comes with a seriously upgraded bit of ‘Black Magic,’ so tee it up for the morning after Turkey Day!” 

Okay—he had our attention. We popped the cork and poured the inky-black Cabernet into an oversized Riedel Bordeaux glass. Swirled, sniffed, and opened the Zoom app. A minute later, Halpin’s face appeared. 

He was grinning ear to ear. “The wine just arrived, didn’t it?” he said, chalking it up to his flawless “shipping prowess.” Then, squinting into the screen, he blurted out, “Where’s your Zaltos!?” We rolled our eyes and shot back, “Don’t be a wine glass zealot. It’s not about the glass today, it’s about what’s in the glass, so let’s cut to the chase and taste!”

We swirled vigorously—the kind of intentional swirling you can’t do with those delicate Zaltos—and inhaled. Gorgeous aromas of currants, plums, and vanilla spices lifted out of the glass and joined notes of clove, licorice, and sweet tobacco on the palate. Supple tannins and a long finish gave way to blue fruit and lilac flowers.

Halpin, the mastermind behind some of our most popular Cabernets, set a high bar with his previous Napa Cabernet release. Still, he managed to raise it with this 2018 bottling—a year of abundance marked by a “long, slow-paced harvest,” according to Wine Spectator, with hang times that just kept going and resulted in a “picture-perfect” season. Winemaker Jeff Ames of TOR told Spectator he didn’t pick until the last days of October. “Nuts” is how Ames put it.

“It’s nuts how I got my hands on these friggin’ grapes!” Halpin cut in after a swig of his Cabernet. “But growers had too much in 2018, and I had the connections.” He grinned a big, very purple-toothed grin just in time for his screen to freeze. (We took a screenshot before it unfroze, and you can bet the bank that we’ll find a fair use for that image.)

We listened to Halpin’s demands in the first five minutes of the Halpin Happy Hour (accepting every case to make this a nation-wide exclusive). But with our friend calling in from the East Coast, we had the Napa home-field advantage and negotiated down to $25 per bottle. 

Let’s just say that with no one around to share either bottle, it was a memorable happy hour—one so good we can’t exactly remember how it ended, or if we hit the 40-minute limit first. There was certainly nothing left in either bottle. And as Larry David once said on the comedy stage after abruptly ending an act: “This is what happens when you run out of nothing.”

• Fruit Intensity
• Oak Intensity
• Body
• Acidity
• Tannin

• ABV 14.90%
• Enjoy right away
• Drink Up
• 88% Cabernet Sauvignon6% Cabernet Franc6% Petit Verdot
• Serving temperature – 60°
• Cork